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KidCompy writes "The newest browsers boast huge performance improvements, but how much do you trust benchmarks trotted out to prove those claims? Do they reflect the real uses to which developers will put HTML 5 and JavaScript? We've extracted several benchmarks from our existing programs to measure actual versus theoretical performance."

Chrome is reporting both as safari and as chrome, it even includes a safari version number, as a minimum safari-version it is compatible with. When Chrome is spoofing to anyone not specifically testing for Chrome, it is hard to blame anyone misdetecting them.

When Chrome is spoofing to anyone not specifically testing for Chrome, it is hard to blame anyone misdetecting them.

That's nothing. Both Safari and IE report as Firefox. The "Mozilla/" in the user agent string represents Netscape Navigator, and the last versions of Netscape (8 and 9) were customized versions of Firefox. Moreover, WebKit browsers such as Safari and Chrome spoof as Konqueror and specifically recent versions of Firefox ("KHTML, like Gecko")

The code only maxes out one core at the moment, so your experience is in-line with what I see as well (I run while compiling and running the dev server with the box gettin' all swappy, and it runs okay even then).

Strangely enough I don't think bots which smack into each other and have collision sensors are very much real world. I don't plan on using my browser to animate bots colliding into each other in the forseeable future...

Most efficient? No. First of all, we want to accentuate the positive with HTML5, and that means leveraging Web Workers and freeing up the DOM thread to do DOM-like things. That is tricky though, lotsa delicate messaging required between modules, and we only halfway refactored the code for that before the Christmas release deadline hit. So, I anticipate all Web Worker-capable browsers will double in Tasty script interpreter performance once we get a chance to implement that. But, as for now, we're singl

A second run on IE8:100/1/1215... it seems like minimizing the browser increases performance.Let's try minimized on Chrome:541/44/6701 - slight improvement. - Your browser's total score is 9884 out of a possible 50000

YES! Minimizing IE6-8 *DOES* improve performance, and I found that interesting as well.

My take is that IE is "close" to the kernel in a lot of ways, and so you get them turning off their blitter or whatever (even though the scene is still rendered in the offscreen buffer). IE really is a mix of very fast and very slow parts (mostly the JavaScript engine is the "slow".) You know, while I was developing that code, I found so many interesting ways to hack the code to squeeze out marginally better performan

why? there's no reason to stick with a browser anymore, they're completely interchangeable, so if IE9 doesn't rock (or to put it another way, as IE6->8 don't rock) then get yourself Firefox, or Chrome or Safari or Opera. Really easy, and you'll get used to the interface in no time at all - in fact, you might like some of the fancy bits in some of the other browsers and think "why the heck did I ever use IE?"

completely agree, just want naive IE users to get a decent experience whenever they upgrade to the next version of windows. (windows 8 will be one of those rare win upgrades I will recommend to f&f when it comes out)

I am displaying the standard "use at your own risk" message box when users launch the shell from the main site on IE and we detect there is no canvas tag support.

If you're in the corporate world there are plenty of reasons to stick with IE. Its already there, it can be secured adequately (security zones, filtering firewall at the edge), group policy and it actually works with DHCP proxy autodetect, which mozilla and chrome do not. Which is a big issue if you have mandatory proxy usage inside your network and roaming users who want their browser to work without it when outside.

The UI issues are a non-issue, its the under the hood stuff that keeps IE on corporate

Well, seeing a Mandelbrot algorithm running on an interpreted language on top of an interpreted language andstruggling on my super powerful quad core makes me suffer. I had coded the Mandelbrot fractal in assemblyand it ran faster on a 80386...

I was surprised at the language used: the basic code at the side showing the code it was running, complete with gosubs, I did think "WTF", but then I read the rest of the site - particularly the bit "ClubCompy is an innovative new service for kids of all ages to learn about computer programming?" and it all became clear, and took me right back to the old days when I was learning programming using code just like that.

Ah, happy days. I'm old enough now not to be surprised that things come

True. But had your Mandelbrot 16 million colors, HD resolution of 1920x1680 and could millions of clients access it with a generic software (the browser), which runs on Linux, Mac, Windows both in 32bit and 64bit and run it for them self?

Chrome was identified as safari 534.10 on all OS's. The results seem to fluctuate a bit from run to run, from 10 to 1500 points (i did some of the tests two - three times). It seems I get different results each time the test is run.

What if I don't need either HTML5 or Javascript? Simple old HTML worked *fine* for a decade to do what it was designed for -- display information (and allow simple forms entry, e.g. electronic transactions). It did *NOT* require HTML5 nor Javascript. Those are applications for people who want to use *my* computer resources for *their* purposes [3].

It is reasonable to point out that Google has scanned 7 million books, PubMed/Medline has 21+ million records, and Wikipedia has 3+ million articles in English

What if you don't need a web browser at all? Decrypting 1940s-era "secure" communications doesn't require all these newfangled applications. If the machines built at Bletchly Park [wikipedia.org] were good enough for Allied Intelligence in WWII, they ought to be good enough for you. Or are you trying to say that you're better than those heroes that helped save the world?

For that matter (and I actually think this may be a better analogy), why do we need interactive terminals at all? Batch processing with punch cards wor

The point primarily was -- the distribution of simple information, which was what IMO the web was intended to do, does *not* require HTML5, nor Javascript. Indeed Google's Gmail points out that one can produce very functional apps without resorting to Javascript. If even some small amount of effort were put into maps.google.com or mapquest I'm sure those would work just as well without Javascript too.

Yet I have *yet* to see a benchmark which measures the simple functions which are those needed for 95+% of

I've been saying the same thing for almost 10 years now. Every time I've been blamed as a "troll". I'd like to have web which just displays information without hundreds of lines of CSS masturbation. For any more complex things I prefer rich apps which uses Web Services (or whatever) when communicating with server(s).

But if five billion other internet users wants to have HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, etc. etc. who am I argue with them.

The point primarily was -- the distribution of simple information, which was what IMO the web was intended to do, does *not* require HTML5, nor Javascript.

But, guess what, the web evolved. It isn't used any more for what it was primarily designed for. It evolved into a platform, where we (except you apparently) do shopping, communication, games, etc. The beauty of the whole thing, is the web is both things now. HTML5 lends itself perfectly for the semantic non-javascript web, with the new tags. It lends itself better for forms with the new input-types (why did we have to wait so long for that?). And it also lends itself for being a complete programming platfo

iPad! Very cool. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get compy keyboard working with the iPad/iPhone's touch screen keyboard. So, if you go to the main site, I doubt you'll be able to play around with the shell. Sorry bout that, you'll have to stick with PC (or use the Compy Clipboard only to input code) if you want to write your own compy programs.

On a semi-related note, I don't have a handle on how much faster the iPad is over the iPhone (if at all). Last time I tested on those (~6 months ago) I r

Ew, like, IE didn't even load a test? It's ok if IE6-8 runs super slow and gets 1/6th of Firefox. IE6-8 doesn't have the Canvas tag after all, so we had to make do with VML. Bleh. But, if it didn't load at all for you on IE and all you saw was a blank canvas, then something must have broke.

Thanks for the report, your numbers look nearly the same as mine and I have a slightly slower AMD with less ram and running XP.

Darn. Well, I built IE support because I had to, not because I cared to. But that is really terrible how it behaved, sorry it didn't work well/at all. Sounds like Firefox and Chrome performed in-line with others though, so at least we got 2 out of 3.;)

I don't understand why people are still using IE. Is there a test that it can pass? I would just put in some conditional comments (which should just be ignored), and give them an "upgrade" link to get a real browser.

Its because it is configurable via group policy, DHCP proxy autodetect actually works (unlike chrome, Firefox) and there is plenty of crappy old intranet style applications out there that businesses rely on that may/may not work in other browsers. It is also on just about every Windows machine connected to the internet, and as it can do all of the above, in the workplace there is little incentive to install an additional browser (thereby increasing your vuln

(both browsers open with a few tabs, Flash disabled)I noted that both browsers ate extra CPU with the bench results page displaying, so I closed that tab while running the other browser. Not sure if test differs if scrolled to see whole test area instead of leaving page as loaded?

This test is a crock of shit. Everyone is so delighted that IE9 is running last that they don't bother to ensure their objectivity, something this "test" certainly does not have. Either that, or the test authors are morons.

Oddly both chrome and safari came up as "Safari version 534.10" in the benchmark.

MacBook Pro 3.06Ghz Core2Duo with 8GB RAM running Mac OS 10.6.5

An aside: The programs you're giving to kids look pretty awful. I know a lot of people have nostalgia about programming their Amiga etc, but I don't think it had anything to do with the crappy programming languages they used to do it. Instead it was simply that those systems allowe

Well, just trying to give the kids a simple language to start with. The site is for everyone, but it's supposed to be something a kindergardener or first grader could be introduced to. I feel we have a moral responsibility to get kids trained on how to code and learn 'em on what computers can be made to do. And so, that's why we made ClubCompy.

That said, I completely concur with you. We have plans to add a sort of "byte code" VM behind the scenes that we could target with an assembler or with a higher l